The former Provo residence of John Edge Booth stands yet at 59 W. 500 North. Although some of her noble good looks have faded through the years, the old house still appears a trifle haughty standing among her newer neighbors -- modest, blocky apartments and utilitarian office buildings.

The grand old lady of 500 North possesses a rightful reason for feeling regal. Within her walls, Utah Valley's "Daughter of Destiny" came into this world in September 1904. The new baby grew into a beautiful, but fragile child with blond hair and pale complexion. Her parents named her Josephine Constance "Connie" Woodruff, and she would ultimately gain fame as Edwina Booth, female lead in the innovative, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie "Trader Horn."

Little Connie came from impressive lineage. Her father, Dr. James Lloyd Woodruff, was the grandson of Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the LDS Church. Her mother, Josephine "Josie" Diantha Booth, was the daughter of John Edge Booth, Provo judge and mayor. Lloyd and Josie were temporarily residing in the Booth home when Connie was born. Josie gave her new daughter the pet name "Dodie." When the Woodruff's lived in Provo, Lloyd worked as temporary editor of the Herald while the regular editor was away (John E. Booth was a major stockholder in the paper). After the regular editor returned, Lloyd worked with George Albert Smith for a short time. Smith told young Woodruff that he had healing in his hands and suggested that he should study medicine.

Connie was three years old when the family moved to Philadelphia, where Lloyd studied medicine at Jefferson Medical College. On Dec. 8, 1907, Judge Booth wrote little Connie a letter. Her new sister Ruth had just been born in the "City of Brotherly Love," and Connie was recuperating from a recent illness when she received this note, which her mother lovingly read to her.

The following two sentences taken from the judge's short missive make evident his tender love for his granddaughter: "Won't we have nice times when you all get back to the farm, and you take her (Baby Ruth) out and show her the ducks and chickens and calves, and have her go riding with you on Nibbs... . Do you know my Dear that I love you."

When the Woodruffs returned to Utah, they lived in Provo and spent their summers at Judge Booth's farm that he named Edgewood in honor of his mother Elsie Edge Booth. The humble farmhouse was once located on about 3300 North University Avenue where the Courtyard at Jamestown is situated today.

According to the fond recollections of Provo octogenarian Shirley Paxman, who is Connie's first cousin, all members of the Booth family spent some time at Edgewood, and the Woodruffs lived there for a while. Later, Lloyd and Josie spent some summers on the farm, as did other members of the family.

Shirley learned from her family how much Judge Booth adored Connie, and his young granddaughter idolized him in return. The venerable judge played games with his granddaughter and entertained her with stories and funny songs.

Journalist Relman Morin interviewed Connie during the spring of 1931. Based on this interview, Morin wrote a series of articles about Connie that appeared in Provo's Evening Herald and in other newspapers throughout the country. Connie told Morin how immensely she enjoyed her time spent at Edgewood. She gleefully recalled a pet goat pulling her down the dusty country lanes in a red wagon.

Connie told the journalist she loved Provo's mountains, trees and sky and spent a good deal of her time on the farm daydreaming under the grove of trees growing on the sun-drenched slopes rising east of the farmhouse. She also told Morin of a strange incident that happened on this hillside during her childhood.

The incident, as reported by Morin, transpired in this manner. Connie loved thunderstorms, and late one summer night at Edgewood, the rumble of thunder roused the young girl from her sleep. She tiptoed to her bedroom window, where she watched the lightning for a moment. Then the blond child with the tangled mass of tresses hanging to her shoulders slipped into her overalls, and carrying her shoes, she silently went down the stairs.

Passing through the outside door, Connie could see, hear and feel the storm. She stretched her arms skyward, and the wind blew through her hair. The adventurous young girl ran to the hillside in back of the farmhouse and clambered up the slope where she could get a better view of the storm, and she braced her back against a rock.

Her grandfather Booth had recently given a small band of gypsies permission to camp on his farm, and he even furnished them with a little food. Connie could see their few wagons on the flat land below huddled next to a large rock like terrified sheep. As the young girl stood watching the storm, an elderly gypsy woman wearing golden earrings appeared next to her. This failed to frighten the girl. A heavy rain fell for a moment, soaking both figures; then it ceased.

In the meantime, Connie's father had discovered her absence and pulled on his clothes in preparation for a search. Josie woke up also, and remembering Connie's infatuation with storms, she checked the child's bed and found it empty. Josie joined the hunt for her missing daughter.

Watching the valley from the hillside, young Connie saw a light go on in the farmhouse, and the girl informed her grizzled companion that she must go home. The two hurried down the hillside toward the house, meeting Lloyd Woodruff with lantern in hand. Josie soon joined them.

The aging vagabond watched and listened quietly as Connie told her anxious parents that she had just gone up the hill in order to better observe the storm. After the young child finished her story, the gypsy woman addressed Josie. According to Morin, this is, in essence, the old woman's divination concerning Connie as she revealed it to the Woodruffs that evening:

"She is a strange child. I see strange things gathering round her, Madame... . Life will hurt her. I see a strange land, and there is danger. Then happiness and good fortune that you could not believe. She is a child of destiny, Madame."

Then the mysterious wayfarer vanished into the darkness, and Lloyd came near spanking Connie for leaving the house after dark without permission. He considered the gypsy's words nothing more than "rot."

During the interview with Morin, Connie said of the gypsy woman's prediction, "She could either read the future, or it was a wild guess that happened to come true."

The gypsy played the percentages with her prognostication. At some time in their lives, most people experience danger, elation and sorrow. Many travel to foreign lands. But in Connie's life, the prediction would come true with a vengeance.

Connie's cousin Shirley had never heard the story of the gypsy woman. However, concerning the presence of gypsies at Edgewood, Shirley remarked, "Oh, I remember the gypsies there, absolutely. They'd come in the summer... . It wasn't common for the area, but is was common for grandpa's farm, yes... . It (the incident with the gypsy woman) could have happened, because I know that gypsies were there."

After Connie finished first grade at the Brigham Young Training School on Lower Campus in Provo, the Woodruffs left Utah Valley for Salt Lake City. Connie would have been about seven years old at the time. In 1914, the family moved to Bountiful where they resided for about a year before returning to Salt Lake City where they lived in a two-story, brick, Craftsman bungalow located at 1914 S. 1100 East.

Connie's sister, Ruth Woodruff Andrews, observed in her biography of her mother that the family did many things together in Salt Lake City when the five children were young. They ate breakfast in Liberty Park, took moonlight hikes to the top of Ensign Peak and swam at Beck's Hot Springs. During the summers, they often spent time at Edgewood.

Among their memorable vacations were a trip to Duchesne over a dirt road and a venture into Yellowstone. While in the national park, Connie seemed always to be too close to the edge of the geysers, seemingly foreshadowing the danger she would face in later years.

Good books surrounded the growing Woodruff children, and they received elocution, music and dancing lessons. Their parents instilled in them a love of beauty and an appreciation of art, as well as creativity, imagination, love, faith and a sense of fair play.

Connie told Relman Morin, the journalist, that she had been spoiled and coddled as a child. She said her mother idolized her, and one Christmas she received more presents than the rest of the family combined.

The other children were apparently not neglected. Shirley Paxman reminisced concerning the parents' relationship with their children, "I think all of the Woodruff children were quite pampered. They were adored by their mother and father."

One major problem troubled Connie's childhood -- ill health. Edward R. Sammis, a movie magazine writer of the 1930s, referred to young Connie as "a fragile, golden-haired child, whose parents once thought she was too delicate ever to live to womanhood." This may help explain why the Woodruffs seemed to favor their eldest daughter.

In 1991, Connie's younger brother, Booth, told legendary Salt Lake Tribune columnist Hal Schlindler that his sister had been a fragile, sickly child who was rarely in good health. He said her heart was strong and her weight was good, but her energy level remained low and she tired easily.

Booth said Connie missed a lot of school because of poor health. She was often lying down when the other children came home from school, and Josie would tell them to be careful not to disturb her. In spite of her illness, Connie finished her schooling in Salt Lake City and even attended Dixie College for a time.

Connie told Morin she liked to be alone and seldom played with her younger brothers and sisters. Morin called Connie a strange, different, turbulent child, and he described her as being an imaginative, introspective, yet practical, hardheaded and coldly analytical teenager.

Regarding her younger years, Bob Moak, a writer for "Screen Secrets Magazine," quoted Connie as saying, "I remember how mother used to read to me for hours at a time. I memorized many of the things she read, for I decided that someday I would be an actress, and that I would train my mind to remember my lines." Connie would soon get a chance to fulfill her dream.

Lloyd Booth became ill with influenza, nearly lost his eyesight, and almost died. He moved to California for a change of climate and a chance to recuperate. The family followed him to The Golden Shore on Aug. 25, 1925, when Connie was nearly 21 years old.

At first, the family lived in a beach house in Ocean Park. In later life, Connie made note of the date of the family's departure for California in a small, stenographic notebook, and also wrote, "I loved the beach & ocean, & then we moved to South Pasadena."

In order to help ends meet, Connie got a job in an office where, according to Morin, she held her real personality in check below the surface of a quiet, efficient facade. During this short phase of her life, Morin claimed Connie was uninitiated and unsophisticated and avoided male contact, finding most men repellent. Connie, who loved the works of Charles Dickens, retreated into the world of books. Booth Woodruff maintained Connie did not go out much, but she became even more infatuated with movies.

In 1926, a chance occurrence on the beach in sunny California changed her life forever.

To be continued...

D. Robert Carter is a historian from Springville. He can be reached at 489-8256. "Tales From Utah Valley" is now available at Borders, Pioneer Books and BYU Bookstore, all in Provo and The Read Leaf in Springville.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B2.